So they got the 55 pages of instructions but did
not get them in writing.
OK. So the note we have from Maria,
our producer who has been a crack
just expert at everything that's going on in there during
this whole trial,
she says us that the note came in at
2:56. There's a request from the jury.
They want to hear about pecker testimony regarding the phone
conversation with Trump,
the decision not to fund the Karen McDougal life rights
story that the
AMI was talking about buying from her,
the pecker testimony on a Trump Tower meeting,
and the Cohen testimony on Trump Tower meeting.
And if I'm right, this is a meeting that other
people were involved in,
but we didn't hear from them.
They weren't called in this case.
So, Trey, what do you make about what they're requesting
so far?
What I make, having been on the receiving end of
a number of those notes,
is it is absolutely impossible to make anything of it.
What you don't know is if all 12 want to
rehear that testimony or if 11 have already made-up their
minds and one wants to hear that testimony.
You don't know why they want to rehear that testimony.
I would imagine if I were the prosecutor,
I would think if I had to pick something for
them to hear,
that might be something good.
But but I would be lying to you if I
said any lawyer,
maybe the one sitting to the right of me,
but if I were a prosecutor or defense attorney,
I have no idea what is on a jury's mind
based on a note,
whether it's 11 or one.
OK, and let me walk through this again.
So the note comes in,
They want to hear David Pecker testimony regarding a phone
conversation with President Trump.
So remember, David Pecker was running the National Enquirer AMI.
There were conversations about catch and kill.
He testified that this happened for a lot of celebrities
and politicians.
It wasn't just something for President Trump.
He also said this kind of stuff started happening with
President Trump,
I believe 1988. I mean,
this was decades of this is the way the business
works.
This is what they do.
So that's who David Pecker is.
Now. They want something about the decision not to fund
the Karen McDougal life rights story.
Now, remember, she's the one who said she had a
longer term relationship with President Trump.
She said something in the neighborhood of 10 months she's
been out there and given interviews where she said they
were in love.
This was not a casual
physical affair, that it was more than that.
We've also heard from her in the past saying she
didn't really want to sell the life rights to her
story in the sense that she did not want to
tell the story about Trump.
She wasn't threatening, but she saw this,
she said in the past and we she didn't take
the stand here,
but she saw this agreement with the National Enquirer as
a way to restart her career as a model to
write articles,
to be on magazine covers.
So they want to know about that and they also
want to hear Packer testimony on the Trump Tower meeting
and Cohen testimony on the Trump Tower meeting.
What does that say to you,
if anything? Andy, let's assume I,
I agree with Trey that juries are always a wild
card.
So it could be one juror.
But since this is the first note,
I want to hark back to something I think you
said earlier,
which is that it's a long trial.
Pecker was the first witness.
If they're working their way through the evidence,
then they might want to be refreshed,
especially since they heard a lot of argument in the
last day about what
Pecker's testimony was in the meaning of it.
They may want to go back themselves over what that
testimony was.
Now, what I wouldn't like about this if I were
a defense lawyer,
and again, taking all Trey's caution about,
you know, not reading too much into this,
if I'm a defense lawyer,
I want them to focus on the records because the
charges in the indictment are falsification of the business records.
If they're looking for Pecker's story,
that's the prosecutor's version of events.
The prosecutors portrayed this case to the jury as a
conspiracy that went back to 2015 to influence the election,
and Pecker was a key player in that.
So it could be that they're refreshing their recollection of
the testimony.
It could also be that there's some buy into the
prosecution's theory of the case.
We'll just have to see.
Although I will say, just playing the devil's advocate because
everybody needs a lawyer,
if Andy and I were debating this over a a
glass of sweet tea back in South Carolina.
Andy, do you know what sweet tea is?
Yeah. No, he's,
he's a New Yorker. All right,
So I'm the defense, I may be emboldened because
he did this all the time.
Pecker killed stories all the time to save marriages,
to save business reputations. Maybe the members of the jury
are sitting there thinking this wasn't about an election,
it was about something else.
It was about preserving his relationship with Melania or preserving
his business reputation.
So there is literally no way of knowing who wants
this testimony replayed and for what reason.